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Colonel Fred Castle delivers a briefing to personnel of the 94th Bomb Group, December 1943.
A censor has obscured the maps and charts in the background. Image stamped on reverse: 'Associated Press'[stamp],'Passed for publication 14 December 1943.'[stamp] '296691.'[Censor no]
Printed caption on reverse: 'Operations Room at US Air Base. Preparing for take off. Associated Press photo shows: Col.F. W. Castle, Group Commanding Officer, gives the massed crews of the base the last part of the briefing, and a personal 'Godspeed' and 'Good Luck' in the briefing room before the start of the raid. Map that is covered in background has route map for raid but was covered for picture.'
This contains information written on the back of the original print and some of it may be inaccurate.
Personnel of the 94th Bomb Group at a mission briefing. A censor has obscured the maps and charts in the background. Image stamped on reverse: 'Associated Press'[stamp],'Passed for publication 14 December 1943.'[stamp] '296691.'[Censor no] Printed caption on reverse: 'Operations Room at US Air Base. Preparing for take off. Associated Press photo shows: Col.F. W. Castle, Group Commanding Officer, gives the massed crews of the base the last part of the briefing, and a personal 'Godspeed' and 'Good Luck' in the briefing room before the start of the raid. Map that is covered in background has route map for raid but was covered for picture.'
Group
Activated 15 June 1942 at MacDill Field, Florida. Initial organization and training at Pendleton Field, Oregon on 29 June 1942. Primary flight training at Davis-Monthan Field in Arizona from 28 Aug. 42 to 31 Oct. 42; then at Biggs Field, El Paso, Texas...
Military | Brigadier General | Commanding Officer; Air Leader, Pilot
Commanding Officer of 94th Bomb Group at Bury St. Edmunds from 19-Jun-43 to 16-Apr-44. Overseas with General Eaker's staff to organize 8th AF, February 1942.
...
11 December 1943
This mission is a massive raid of 583 heavy bombers on the industrial areas of Emden, Germany. The first element is a combined force of 242 B-17s from 1st Bomb Division that included: 91BG (24); 92BG (18); 303BG (20); 305BG (21); 306BG (20); 351BG (40)...
Military site : airfield
The airfield was purpose-built for American bomb groups and as such had a 2,000 yard main runway that lain in concrete with a tarred and wood-chipped surface. The scale of bases such as this meant that very often the technical, administrative and...
| Date | Contributor | Update |
|---|---|---|
| 29 November 2019 15:34:01 | Emily | Changes to caption and mission associations |
| Sources | ||
Amended caption and mission associations as per description in Freeman, Mighty Eighth War Diary, p 149 |
||
| Date | Contributor | Update |
| 22 October 2014 09:04:03 | general ira snapsorter | Changes to caption |
| Sources | ||
This image appears in Roger Freeman "The Mighty Eighth War Manual" p.14 |
||
| Date | Contributor | Update |
| 08 September 2014 15:28:53 | AAM | AAM ingest |
| Sources | ||
IWM, Roger Freeman Collection |
||
